Rainer Weiss personal archives

Rainer Weiss, 1932 --, earned an SB in physics in 1955 and a PhD in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1962. He was an instructor and assistant professor of physics at Tufts University 1960-1962, at Princeton University from 1962 to 1964 before joining the faculty at MIT where he was assistant professor of physics, 1964-1967; associate professor of physics, 1967-1973; professor of physics, 1973-2002; and emeritus, 2002-present. At MIT he was also affiliated with the Research Laboratory of Electronics, and later with the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.

from the Department of Physics faculty page: http://web.mit.edu/physics/people/faculty/weiss_rainer.html

Research interests of Rainer Weiss included experimental atomic physics, atomic clocks, laser physics, experimental gravitation, millimeter and sub-millimeter astronomy, and cosmic background measurement. He worked on atomic clock development, a balloon program for measuring cosmic background radiation, the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite program, and the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO).

Weiss has served on numerous professional panels and scientific committees for NASA, the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy (DOE), the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the National Academies of Science (NAS), and the National Research Council (NRC).

Professional awards include election to membership in the National Academy of Sciences in 2000. In 2006, he was awarded, as part of the COBE Team, the Gruber Cosmology Prize, which honors a leading cosmologist, astronomer, astrophysicist, or scientific philosopher, for theoretical, analytical, conceptual, or observational discoveries leading to fundamental advances in our understanding of the universe. The following year he was named a co-recipient of the Einstein Prize of the American Physical Society “for fundamental contributions to the development of gravitational wave detectors based on optical interferometry, leading to the successful operation of LIGO.”

In 2016, Rainer Weiss won the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics, sharing the prize with Kip Thorne, Caltech’s Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, emeritus, and with Ronald Drever, emeritus professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The prize honors the three for their instrumental role in establishing LIGO, an effort that led to the direct detection of gravitational waves. In May and June 2016 additional awards recognized the three scientists when they were awarded the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (which they shared with their many LIGO collaborators); also the Gruber Cosmology Prize; and then the Shaw Prize in Astronomy.

Rainer Weiss supervised the PhD dissertations of Dirk Muehlner (1970), David Owens (1976), Patricia Downey (1980), Daniel Dewey (1986), Jeffrey Livas (1987), Nelson Christensen (1990), Peter Fritschel (1992), Michelle Stephens (1992), Joseph Kovalik (1994), Joseph Giaime (1995), Partha Saha (1997), Nergis Mavalvala (1997), Brett Bochner (1998), Brian Lantz (1999), Julien Sylvestre (2002), Ryan Lawrence (2003) and Rana Adhikari (2004).

He supervised the master's theses of Frank Wentz (1971), David Little (1974), Gerald Blum (1971), Lynne Deutsch (1983), David Shoemaker (1980), and Peter Csatorday (1999), as well as theses for many bachelor's degrees.

COBE was an outgrowth of balloon-borne and ground-based observations of cosmic background radiation begun shortly after the discovery of the radiation in 1965. The major aims of the project were to (a) measure the spectrum of the cosmic background; (b) measure the angular distribution of the cosmic background to the level of confusion imposed by the local astrophysical background; and (c) measure or set limits to the diffuse infrared background in the mm to 1 micron band. COBE satellite explorer was proposed in 1974 by a group of scientists at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Princeton University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It was ultimately flown in 1989 in a configuration very close to this original proposal.

John Mather was one of the original group proposing COBE; others were Robert Silverberg, Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Michael Hauser (GSFC), Dirk Muehlner (MIT), Rainer Weiss (MIT), and David Wilkinson (Princeton). Subsequently, NASA formed a study team bringing together this group and others who had proposed space-borne cosmic background radiation missions. This team became the original COBE Science Working Group (CSWG or SWG), consisting of Samuel Gulkis (Jet Propulsion Lab), Michael Hauser (GSFC and principal investigator for the DIRBE instrument), John Mather (GSFC project scientist and principal investigator forthe FIRAS instrument), George Smoot (U.C. at Berkeley and principal investigator for the DMR instrument), Rainer Weiss (MIT, CSWG Chair), and David Wilkinson (Princeton).

Rainer Weiss was chair of the COBE Science Working Group and was one of the originators of the mission. MIT had specific hardware responsibilities in making the prototype interferometer for FIRAS (Far Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer), an instrument that traveled aboard the COBE satellite, and in the development of the bolometric detectors. The MIT group worked on all aspects of the COBE mission. The group included Edward (Ned) Wright, Stephan Meyer, and Edward Cheng (Principal Research Scientist), all of whom played major roles in the CSWG. Cheng became head of the Data Analysis Group and left MIT to join GSFC. Wright was the guiding figure in software development for COBE and was a leading interpreter of the astrophysical results of the mission. Meyer, in addition to his work on COBE, ran a balloon-borne observing program with Lyman Page (who was at that time a graduate student). The balloon experiment confirmed the small-scale anisotropy measurements made by COBE. The COBE project began while Rainer Weiss and the Gravitation Research and Cosmology Group faculty at MIT were affiliated with the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE). In 1983, the COBE project at MIT was brought into the Center for Space Research.

The Differential Microwave Radiometer (DMR) and FIRAS measured background radiation. The Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment (DIRBE) was an experiment that derived data from the infrared COBE detector. Data sent back revealed traces of radiation left over from the origins of the universe, including hot and cold spots in the cosmic background radiation that support the Big Bang Theory. COBE was able to map the entire sky, unlike previous balloon-borne experiments, which had mapped only one-third of the sky.

LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) is a joint California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) research investigation, supported by the National Science Foundation, to detect gravitational waves, or ripples in the curvature of spacetime. LIGO research is carried out by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC), a group of around 1,000 scientists at universities around the United States, including MIT, and in 15 other countries. The LIGO observatories are operated by MIT and Caltech. LIGO is a system of two identical detectors located 1,865 miles apart -- one in Livingston, Louisiana, the other in Hanford, Washington.

On September 14, 2015 (announced in February 2016) scientists from MIT and Caltech made the first direct detection of gravitational waves reaching the Earth. The two LIGO gravitational wave detectors in Hanford, Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana, caught a signal for the second time on December 26, 2015.

From a LIGO press release:

On September 14, 2015 at 5:51 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (09:51 UTC), the twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, USA both measured ripples in the fabric of spacetime – gravitational waves – arriving at the Earth from a cataclysmic event in the distant universe. The new Advanced LIGO detectors had just been brought into operation for their first observing run when the very clear and strong signal was captured.

This discovery comes at the culmination of decades of instrument research and development, through a world-wide effort of thousands of researchers, and made possible by dedicated support for LIGO from the National Science Foundation. It also proves a prediction made 100 years ago by Einstein that gravitational waves exist.

Rainer Weiss began thinking about a way to measure gravitational waves in the late 1960s when he was teaching a course on relativity at MIT. At MIT he was able to obtain funding and start experimenting in the lab. In the early 1970s Weiss built a 1.5-meter prototype of a LIGO. By the late 1970s, the project had grown to include scientists from both MIT and the California Institute of Technology and was being funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The program continued to grow and plans for construction of two LIGO facilities were realized in the early 2000s. Two facilities were built in the United States, one in Livingston, Louisiana, the other in Hanford, Washington. “Initial LIGO” refers to the LIGO instruments in their first interferometer configuration, from roughly 2001 until 2010.The process of upgrading the LIGO facilities to advanced detectors began in 2010, shortly after the conclusion of the final Initial LIGO data run.

The MIT Libraries has compiled a detailed guide to LIGO and gravitational wave information resources including background and direct links to research publications. https://libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/gravitational-waves/

The LIGO detection web site contains press releases, scientific information, and documents about the February 2016 announcement of gravitational wave detection. https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/detection

MIT LIGO Lab web site: http://space.mit.edu/LIGO/